All Features
Patrick Nugent
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Joe Gibbs Racing, a family business founded by former three-time Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs, is one of today’s most successful racing teams. In its 25-year history, it has earned four NASCAR Cup Series championships, five NASCAR XFINITY Series…
Nick Butch
One of my favorite things about being a condensed matter physicist is how broadly defined the subject is. There are lots of interesting phenomena begging for scientific attention, so it’s never boring. One of my favorite topics lies at the crossroads of magnetism and superconductivity.
Magnets…
Ryan E. Day
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For manufacturers, big parts pose big challenges. How does one measure parts that are in excess of 15 ft and also have complex geometry? Design and inspection are part and parcel of all manufacturing operations, but as product size increases, and part geometry grows more complex…
Olympus
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Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations help protect the public from the toxicity and pollution associated with consumer products and electronics. Beyond public health and safety concerns, the cost of noncompliance, including fines, product recalls, and decreased…
Henry Zumbrun
Imagine that a satellite is launched into space and communications are intermittent. This happens because the satellite is wobbling, which causes connection problems in the receiver. The cause of the wobbling is identified: It is the result of not using a calibration provider with a low enough…
David Sefcik
Believe it or not, I love to grocery shop. Besides getting to pick all my favorite foods, I love the challenge of getting the best deals—and a challenge it can sometimes be. Without a doubt, I have found that the best tool available to enable price and value comparison is unit pricing—you know,…
Eugene Daniell
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Every day, quality and production process leaders must find new ways to improve product processes in a constantly changing manufacturing environment. For most companies, the low-hanging fruit of process improvement is a distant memory. Now, it’s all about seeking significant…
Ryan E. Day
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Brian Vinson may have one of the best jobs in the country. Vinson works as director of engineering with AWE Tuning, an automotive aftermarket company that provides award-winning, handcrafted performance exhausts, track-tested carbon-fiber intakes, and performance intercoolers.
“…
Joe Flanagan
There are many factors that influence the accuracy of a weighing system. Assuming that external factors are minimized or eliminated, the most important factor is the appropriate selection of the load cell for a given weighing application. This discussion covers the key load-cell specifications…
Bert Coursey
Marie Curie is perhaps the most famous woman of 20th-century science. Major films and best-selling biographies have chronicled her discovery of the radioactive elements polonium and radium, for which she shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and then received a second Nobel Prize, this time in…
Renishaw
Land Rover Ben Ainsile Racing (BAR) is no stranger to cutting-edge technologies. The British yacht racing team, formed by four-time Olympic gold medalist and America’s Cup winner Sir Ben Ainsile, uses artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and most recently, additive manufacturing (3D…
Ann Chiaramonti Debay
I have worked with many valuable materials in my career. Precious metals like gold and platinum, rare engineered nanomaterials, and fragile gemstones nearly as old as the Earth itself. But the unassuming jars of fine gray-brown powder I found myself holding last year left them all in the dust, so…
Katherine McIntosh
In 1970, the Seabee Memorial Association began construction to build a monument in Washington, D.C. to honor the memory of those who served in Naval Construction Battalions. The famous Felix de Weldon—a former Seabee—designed the monument of dark brown marble with bronze figures and a bronze back…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Businesses don’t have to chose between being “tree huggers” or “planet plunderers.” Black History Month: NIST employee was one of the developers of the computerized spreadsheet. Metrology: process signature analysis and large-field-of-view, multisensor systems.
“African-American History Month:…
NIST
To any of his sports-fan colleagues, NIST mathematician and computer programmer Vernon Dantzler might have been somewhat of a celebrity. Dantzler had been a professional baseball player, and a star shortstop in the Texas circuit of the Negro Baseball League during the early 1940s, before the…
Alexander Schönberg, Mike Wehn, Alexander Richter
Measurement-assisted assembly has been integrated into the production flow in recent years. Many processes are designed for a high repeatability through fixtures and maximum stiffness. They approach an optimal operating point through iterative processes using measurements. This approach permits…
Belinda Jones
The Coordinate Metrology Society, in collaboration with UNC Charlotte, announced the fifth working meeting of the PrecisionPath Consortium for Large-Scale Manufacturing will be held on March 23, 2017, in Dallas, at the Hyatt Regency DFW, Terminal C. The PrecisionPath Consortium has worked steadily…
Keith Bevan
To kick off 2017, the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) has recently launched a new website and brand refresh with new features and old favorites such as technical papers, presentations, and technical reports, to name but a few. The organization is also in full swing preparing for the 33rd annual…
George LeGrand
One of the questions our customers ask most frequently is, “How often do I need to have my machine inspected for alignment?” Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer. There are a number of factors that can affect the alignment of equipment and these should be taken into consideration when…
Ryan E. Day
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In a TED Talk, Geordie Rose, co-creator of the D-WAVE quantum computer, said, “Humans use tools to do things. If you give humans a new kind of tool, they can do things they couldn’t otherwise do—imagine the possibilities.”
Rose was, of course, speaking of quantum computers, but…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
In case you missed it, last week’s Quality Digest Live contained some great articles and discussion between myself and my co-host, Quality Digest publisher in chief Mike Richman. In the show, we covered:
“Manufacturing Trends to Watch in 2017”
In this run-down of technologies to watch, of…
Robin Materese
A catchphrase from a popular reality show goes: “One day you’re in. And the next day, you’re out.” For the purposes of the show, the host is referencing fashion. But the same could be said about science. With each new discovery or advance, an old theory or idea often becomes obsolete—or at least…
Ryan E. Day
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Everything, it seems, has a vulnerability. For werewolves, it’s silver bullets. For Superman, it’s Kryptonite. For manufacturing—it’s rework. Rework means loss of throughput, which means loss of profit, which can mean death by a thousand rewelds. But, just as silver bullets can…
Jessica Gabel Cino
Forensic science has become a mainstay of many a TV drama, and it’s just as important in real-life criminal trials. Drawing on biology, chemistry, genetics, medicine, and psychology, forensic evidence helps answer questions in the legal system. Often, forensics provides the “smoking gun” that…
Matthew Pasek
For most of human history, people have been terrified by lightning. Frightening bolts from above, lightning was considered a tool of the gods to smite mortals for their hubris (or their unfortunate penchant for seeking shelter from storms under trees). The discovery and implementation of Benjamin…
